Songs From an American Movie, Volume 1: Learning How to Smile
by
Everclear
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Release type:What's this?
studio album
First released:
Jul 11 2000

Overview Edit

Songs from an American Movie, Vol. 1: Learning How to Smile is an album by Everclear, released on July 11, 2000. The album (along with its sequel, Songs from an American Movie, Vol. 2: Good Time for a Bad Attitude) is a loose concept album based around lead singer Art Alexakis' second divorce. The first album is much more influenced by American pop music, especially from the 1970s, as well as being more "loving" in tone than the hard rock Good Time for a Bad Attitude. The album is dedicated to David Ridderhof and Louis Montoya.

The cover art is a parody of the famous painting American Gothic by Grant Wood. It could also allude to the music video for So Much for the Afterglow track, "I Will Buy You A New Life", in which the band can be seen performing in a yard through a spyhole.

"Learning How To Smile" is the band's second highest selling album ever with 1.28 million copies sold. It is also the band's only album to debut in the top ten on the Billboard charts, and the last album by Everclear to sell over 500,000 copies.

The Overview appearing in this section is attributed to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songs_from_an_American_Movie,_Vol._1:_Learning_How_to_Smile. Portions of this Overview may be available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, version 3.0 or any later version, available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/. Additional terms may apply. See Wikipedia Terms of Use for details.

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This particular version Edit

Record label:
Catalog number:
97061
Release dates:
  • Feb 2001 in United States

Genres

Pop Rock, Post-grunge,
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What do Amazon.com customers think?

4 stars Sgt Boutique
Most alternative bands today seem to be one amorphous band with hundreds of musicians all producing the same songs. Everclear has set apart themselves from this generic monster with their latest album, Songs From an American Movie, by using a rich variety of styles. For example, "Here We Go Again" and "AM Radio" use simple but effective sampling in the songs, similar to Beastie Boy's "Pauls' Boutique". "Learning How to Smile", "Otis Redding", and "Annabella's Song" use orchestral accompaniment s…
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Written by Jon Simon
3 stars What happened?
I miss the old Everclear! I was really excited to see a new album come out.. but I guess I'll stick to the old CD's. They seem to have softened up alot. I'm not completely disapointed so I think it deserves 3 stars.
Written by an unknown author

Track listing Edit

Credits Edit

  1. design

    1. Art Alexakis [art direction]
    2. Craig Montoya [photography]
    3. Frank W. Ockenfels III [photography]
    4. Jeffery Fey [graphic design]

  2. engineer

    2. Eddy Schreyer [mastering]
    5. Mike Kent [recording]
    7. Neal Avron [recording and mix]

  1. performer

    1. Art Alexakis [vocals and instrument]
    2. Craig Montoya [vocals and instrument]
    3. Greg Eklund [vocals and instrument]
    4. James Beaton [instrument]
    5. Lars Fox [vocals and instrument]

  2. producer

Other versions Edit

Songs From an American Movie, Volume 1: Learning How to Smile 12 tracks format: 1 x CD
record label: Capitol Records
catalog number: 97061
release dates: Jul 11 2000 in Australia
view details
Songs From an American Movie, Volume 1: Learning How to Smile 12 tracks format: 1 x CD
record label: Capitol Records
catalog number: CDP 7243 4 97061 2 5
release dates: Jul 11 2000 in Canada, Jul 11 2000 in United States
view details
Songs From an American Movie, Volume 1: Learning How to Smile 13 tracks format: 1 x CD
record label: Capitol Records
catalog number: 97061
release dates: Sep 10 2002 in Japan
view details
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